The mail ballot drop box outside the Carson City Community Center on Nov. 5.
The 2024 General Election that brought high voter turnout in Carson City cost $439,044.34 to conduct, according to figures provided by the Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
Only a small portion of that, $37,426.62, was for printing and mailing of corrected ballots citywide after an error in the original mail ballots was discovered. The error listed a congressional candidate as a Democrat instead of as a member of the Independent American Party.
“Moving forward, we will be working with the Elections Group and the Secretary of State to add a third layer of ballot review for elections,” said Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen.
Costs for printing and mailing original ballots were $36,093.52. The city reported that besides printing and mailing ballots, total election costs included “poll workers, annual fees and items that were purchased to be reused in future elections.”
Of total costs, $163,960.76 was submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office for reimbursement. The reimbursable amount included costs for the sample ballot, original ballot and corrected ballot, plus $54,528.60 in legal advertising.
In comparison, expenses for the Feb. 6, 2024, Presential Preference Primary were $131,733.50, Hoen previously reported. But that contest was partisan, nonbinding and saw meager voter turnout of 27 percent.
For the General Election in November, voter turnout in Carson was 78.4 percent, or 31,149 ballots cast from 39,731 active voters. Partisan turnout was over 80 percent, while nonpartisan turnout was around 60 percent, according to the Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, state law was changed through Assembly Bill 321 to make mail ballots a required option for all elections. Post-pandemic, the Clerk-Recorder’s Office must be prepared for all active registered voters to cast ballots by mail even if a significant portion chooses in-person voting.
Not unexpectedly, mail ballots in the General Election eclipsed in-person votes. In-person voting both in the early voting period and on Election Day saw a combined total of 14,790 ballots cast versus 16,359 mail ballots cast, according to the official election results certified by the Carson City Board of Supervisors on Nov. 15.